Belt comparisons?

How did those heat up using zirconium? The yellow cubitrons, 954 maybe? Seem to run the coolest grinding 304 from my limited experience.

FWIW, I've said it before, but we go through a few thousand 7" flap wheels a year at work, and the many times we've evaluated and projected annual costs, the Cubitron II flap wheels have always won out, even at the higher cost.

It's not a direct comparison even though it's the same abrasive, not just because flap != belt, but the Cubitron flap wheels in comparison to others are much closer to 25-30% different in price where the belts are almost 100%.

The only thing that would outlast the Cubitron wheels was brazed diamond discs, and everyone hated them because of the vibration. But man those things could remove material fast, for a long time.
 
Well, the problem with 304 in my shop, is not heat so much from grinding, but just gumming up belts. It's pieces of 304 ripping off and smearing onto the abrasive grains until although still mostly sharp, they are buried in a smear that won't let them cut. I have seen that it happens about equally to all belts.
It was very similar when I made a blade from GNiCr40Al4, a weird gummy age-hardening alloy. Also similar to grinding 6Al4V TI.
Plus, it just sucks and takes a lot of elbow grease, so I figured why not throw some extra coarse abrasive at it, and cheap belts, just to get through! Was nice to get it over with.
 
I have a stupid noob question. Can you wax the grit to prevent the smearing like you do with aluminum or galvanized?

And I guess my second is, are there no gains to be had from waxing/lubing? With aluminum there is but it seemed like there were some gains with steel as well. I never really hog steel off with flapper disk at work so I haven't put it to the test.

My new grinder is finally on its way. It was back ordered for over 2 months so I'm pretty excited. In a couple of weeks I can test everything for myself and not just lurk.
 
comet_sharp said:
Hey guys,
About to order my second batch of belts and am wondering what people think about the Norton Blaze vs VSM belts and gators/trizac/norax comparisons.
I mainly grind 52100 post HT but will be doing a batch of AEB-L in the next month or two. I have been doing my rough grinding with VSM 50 grit (the cheaper ones) and they have been working fine as long as I run them fast but I notice they don't cut as well when I get close to finishing my bevels. My blades are usually 6-10" long blades on kitchen knives so wide bevels and lots of meat to remove since I do it all post HT. The VSM 120grit belts seem to have an even less life span trying to clean up all the 50 grit scratches, so I might try 60grit instead of 50 for my bevels this run. Just wondering if the extra 3-5$ a belt is worth it to try out the Norton Blaze, if anyone who has used both can compare. Also tried a few of the Norton Bluefire 120 grit and they seemed to cut much better than the VSM 120 for me.
I grind my edges to < .005" and have been using the Norax belts to clean them up before hand sanding because the gators seemed aggressive, but I also only tried the gator in 120g. The Norax seem to have a decent lifespan. I like to start hand sanding at 400 grit so I've been taking them up to x45 Norax belts, one or 2 passes with a grey scotch brite belt and then handing from 400 up there and seems to be working alright. Any suggestions before I order this next round of belts would be helpful. Thank you all very much.
-Trey / Comet
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For me Norton Blaze are by far the best. I profile and rough grind my knives before heat treat. My favorite steel is CPM S30V or CPM S35VN and the Norton belts last at least 5 times longer than the cheaper belts. Why not buy one or two and try them out?


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Im definitely ordering some blaze belts in 60 and 120. I heard you cannot wet grind with cubitron belts, is this right or was I misinformed?
 
I ordered a yellow ceramic belt from Phoenix abrasives to try that they touted as better than Blaze. I have to agree with them. I really like their yellow ceramics. I prefer their purple ceramic for post heat treat grinding. Their pricing is good as well. I also ordered their "blaze" equivalent for comparison, and it performed as good as the blaze belts I have used in the past.
 
comet_sharp said:
Im definitely ordering some blaze belts in 60 and 120. I heard you cannot wet grind with cubitron belts, is this right or was I misinformed?
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No wet grinding with Cubitron ll 947a

Wet grinding can be done with Cubitron II 984
 
Kevin McGovern said:
I ordered a yellow ceramic belt from Phoenix abrasives to try that they touted as better than Blaze. I have to agree with them. I really like their yellow ceramics. I prefer their purple ceramic for post heat treat grinding. Their pricing is good as well. I also ordered their "blaze" equivalent for comparison, and it performed as good as the blaze belts I have used in the past.
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I can't find their prices for ceramic, how much are they in 60g and 800g ceramic if you know?
 
For grinding post HT AEB-L I'd recommend a high end ceramic belt. VSM XK885 are a great choice. I've used the Sait 9s ceramics recently, which are okay. Start with 36, 60, 120. With new belts it goes pretty quickly. Youll have find a fast enough speed when grinding AEBL, i found the belts performed far better when cranked up a bit faster than i normally grind. Given the cost of the 3Ms I'm not sure you'll get twice the performance.... But as i haven't tried them myself yet, a test is on the cards. &#128521;
 
Thanks everyone. After a lot of consideration and about an hour of price matching I went with pops this time around (have used trugrit every other time) and will probably use both suppliers depending on what I need. For my roughing belts I went with 10 blaze and 5 Cubitron II in 60 grit and I ordered 15 blaze 120 grit belts. After that I got a selection of gators, (played with the 2 gator belts I have last night and really liked them after using Norax for my previous knives). Main reason for pops was the price on Blaze belts and the 17$ scotch brite (i already have the grey but wanna try using the blue one too). Tru grit has always done me right and has a hell of a selection so I will surely use them again in the future. Just need to balance what I want/need for future orders so I don't pay twice for shipping using both! Plan on trying the VSM XK885s in the future but I am not impressed with the lower VSM model. Also plan on trying more 984F Cubitrons but each site has a limited selection so the bulk of my belts will be Blaze this round. Just ordered 24ft of AEB-L after only using 52100 and am excited to try the new belts and new steel. Thanks for all the help, and thanks for making me realizing I just need to try them all. Cheers and happy grinding!
-Trey/Comet
 
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